Sound Exposure Calculations for Transient Events and Other Improvements to an Acoustical Tactical Decision Aid

Abstract

Recent enhancements to an acoustical tactical decision aid, called the Acoustic Battlefield Aid (ABFA), are described. ABFA predicts the effects of the atmosphere and local terrain on the performance of acoustical sensors, using advanced sound propagation models. Among the enhancements are (1) sound-exposure and detection calculations for moving and transient sources, (2) new display capabilities including loading of vector-map features from CDs, (3) an interactive menu for entering and managing acoustical and meteorological ground properties, (4) initialization of runs from field trials stored in the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Automatic Target Recognition Acoustic Database, (5) a Java-based interface to numerical weather forecast data over the Internet, and (6) creation of a Windows executable version using the MATLAB compiler.

Sensitivity of shot detection and localization to environmental propagation

“…It is however a challenging perspective, due to the difficulty of monitoring the many relevant environmental parameters, and the impossibility of controlling them. Numerical models can be used to evaluate the sensitivity of systems to environmental parameters in a controlled manner [39]. In so far as these parameters are predictable, the models may further be used to provide valuable decision aid, e.g.…”